Skyfall or Skyfail?

Dum dum dumb, dum dum dumb, du dumb du du dumb.  This is what hit me like a ton of bricks, or better yet, 007 hitting any and all bad guys, when I watched Skyfall.  This was surprising, because after all, this James Bond, Daniel Craig, is arguably the coolest.  No?  Disagree?  Well he definitely is the most believable and realistic James Bond to date! Booyah!  Argue with that reader.

DISCLAIMER: THIS POSTING WILL SEEM MEAN AND NIT-PICKY.  PLEASE STICK WITH IT, I PROMISE IT’LL COME AROUND…OH YA, SPOILER ALERT! 

Why did this improved song come to mind (for your information, that first sentence should be sung to the Bond tune)?  It’s because Daniel Craig was upset that unlike his predecessors, he has not received “Bondesque” devices: car with guns, ejector seats, jet packs, laser watch, etc., etc., etc.  Well Daniel Craig, look no further, it has been decided that you will receive your wish, in the form of a 1960’s Aston Martin DB5!  Wait, what?  You mean the car Sean Connery drove in Goldfinger?  Yes, the very one.  But why, you ask?  Well it’s because MGM and others wanted to have a little wink and nod to the origin of the franchise; I mean Skyfall is the 50^th anniversary film, so why not give a little something to those who have loved these movies since the beginning.  Well I have one reason: it makes no sense in the Daniel Craig timeline.  There I said it.

My problem with this car is that it is a cheesy addition to the story, and worse, it wasn’t a quick little “tah-dah” flash the ride and away with it.  No!  Instead it had an integral part in the story playing out.  ??????  Literally when I saw this I was lost.  I was so on board with the film up until that point, and then suddenly like a cheap magic trick this car appears and worse than that, it saves the day.

Now, if you have been kind and followed me to this point, I too will be kind.  I really did enjoy the majority of the film and all the scenes without the car. In fact, I will go further and say that I would have been totally fine with the car being there if the car had been established in Craig’s Bond world.  All they would have needed was a minor sequence of exchanged words a.k.a. dialogue where Bond explains the car’s origins and the gadgets - that’s all I ask.  See the problem is this, we as viewers understand the significance of the car on film; however, a screenwriter’s job is to tell us what is happening.  We can make minor assumptions and jumps in thought, but this car was a major character!! Hello??  What if they never explained the new ”Q”, or explained who “M” was or even explained who Bond himself was?  You as the viewer would be confused and annoyed.  If you as the viewer had to go and explain those people - key characters - to yourself or someone else, you would stop before starting.  This is why I was flabbergasted.  The main rule behind screenwriting is to establish and explain when something or someone is important to the story, i.e., how this car came to be in Daniel Craig’s Bond timeline.

Now I know this sounds like I’m being way critical, and believe me I am.  However, something such as this needs to be explained, because up until the point the car arrived, I was really enjoying the film.  I’m really blown away too, because “M” knew what all the gadgets were, and made a reference to the ejector seat button.  Well, if we are supposed to believe that Daniel Craig is the one and only James Bond, then where did this car and the knowledge of it come from?  “M” has never talked about the MI6 gadgets before, yet she knows about the gadgets on this car.  This doesn’t make sense to me.  They literally could have simply had Bond say, “the new ‘Q’ hooked me up with some gear, this car has been in my possession for awhile and we recently modified it,” or something along those lines. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? It would have taken all of 15 seconds of screen time.  As I continue thinking about this car, I remember that Craig (Bond) won a classic Aston Martin from a civilian in Casino Royale – albeit one without any spygear and gadgets; this was presumably the same as the Goldfinger era Aston.  Since the decision was to bring this Aston into Craig’s universe when they did, we are then left to believe that sometime between Casino Royale and Skyfall, “Q” (or someone else) modified the car Bond won with gadgets known to the head of MI6.  Here is the question I’m posing to you readers: why would the gadgets installed in the current day be antiquated 1960’s technology instead of the latest, most fantastic, modern technology?  The answer is, they wouldn’t! Looking at it the other way around, if this “quaint” technology were still around in Craig’s universe, why wouldn’t his sweet new DB9 (Casino Royale) or DBS (Quantum of Solace) have used it? Where were the machine guns behind the headlights, or ejector seats in his more modern rides?  It makes no sense at all.  In fact, the more I think about this car, the more I hate that it was introduced as nothing more than comic relief, plopped down in the middle of the plot, without any real explanation. This kind of device has its place in a plot when explained – audiences are fond of a cheap smile in the middle of a lot of action. Here, however, I was left frustrated by screenwriters playing down to their audience. ARGH!!!

Let me ask you a question.  In “Back to the Future”, Marty McFly goes from 1985 to 1955 in a time machine.  When he gets to the past, people look at him and inquire about his strange clothing.  Marty’s response was that he was from somewhere else. The same thing happened later when he was playing Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, then suddenly transitions into a heavy metal solo, telling the audience who are looking at him questioningly, that  where he comes from, music like that is a hit.  The screenwriters included those lines as comic relief, of course, but also to provide “cover” for the fact that Marty wasn’t of their time; it all played into the plot, gave the audience a laugh, and “allowed” the 1950's characters to accept Marty, if still somewhat questioningly. Imagine if those lines hadn’t been included, no one questioning the strange clothes or music. It wouldn’t have worked because the audience needed to know that the people of the 1950's timeline found something about Marty that wasn’t quite right. The audience would see it, and they would wonder why the characters in the film did not. This is exactly my problem with the inclusion of the classic Aston and its 1960s tech in “Skyfall”; without explanation, it makes no sense within Daniel Craig’s Bond timeline. Fun to see the old car? Sure; I’m not immune to a joke. In this case, though, the joke was on the audience, because within the context of the film, no real explanation for the car’s existence was ever provided. Beyond that, of course, there are those viewers unfamiliar with the '60s era Bond films, perhaps only seeing the Daniel Craig franchise, or even just this film. To them, the classic Aston, no explanation behind it, isn’t even much of a wink and nod.

To this I say: EPIC SKYFAIL!!!!!

All right, the rant is over, here now is some praise. 

In spite of it all, I thought this was a very good story; I thought the villain, played by Javier Bardem, although incredibly awkward, was perfectly intense and terrifying, and also enjoyed how the story introduced Moneypenny.  That’s a throw back to the Bond days of old that I felt was acceptable and fun.   The cinematics were very sharp, and the fight sequences were easily followed and very realistic.  I wasn’t happy to see them killing off Dame Judi Dench’s character (M), but it was handled very well; for all I know Dame Judi may have requested a write-out, wanting to retire from the franchise, she has been in the franchise for a while.   There were some odd plot points, such as Bond’s “death”; I didn’t understand why he stayed in hiding for so long without letting anyone know he survived. Then there was an “interesting” scene between Bardem and Craig where Bardem had an almost romantic or sexual interaction with Bond; nothing wrong with that, except that it, too, was never explained (shame shame screenwriters: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan.)

I wish I could have enjoyed the car; maybe I need to watch the film again, and just relax.  This isn’t a cinematic masterpiece by any means.  This is not “Gone With the Wind”, “Saving Private Ryan”, or even “March of the Penguins”.  So please reader (I promise I will eventually remember each and every one of your names) don’t hate me for this post; embrace the screen writing knowledge I imparted to you, and leave a comment or two.  Let’s have a discussion.  Full disclosure, I have been reading up on this car and found that it has been in Pierce Brosnan’s Bond franchise; while I don’t recall this fact, that’s what the net told me (and if it’s on net, it can’t be wrong, right?).  All right, so maybe I’m being hypercritical and just hating on something that is only in the film for those who have been watching Bond films for almost 50 years.

The bottom line is that I will be watching this film again.  I am actually looking forward to it!  Perhaps my mind will be un-blown (in the bad way) and re-blown (in a good way) and I will revise or make an addendum to this posting.  Please everyone, see this film for yourselves and remember that my problems were strictly from an over-analytical perspective; you may love the car and think I’m being too strict.  I apologize in advance for you who liked the car aspect - I am sorry!  Yes I know I am a big person to admit my faults.

Final words: Medium Popcorn
I know I will be watching this again, and most everybody should find this film enjoyable.  So the medium popcorn could be more like a large; you decide! 

Until next time, happy viewing!

Review Rating : Based on popcorn sizes; small, medium, large, extra-large
                           When films get a snore zzz... worth skipping